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UVa expels plagiarizing OhioU student from ship!

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

An Ohio University student, Allison Routman, on-board the "Semester at Sea" program run by the University of Virginia, was put ashore at Greece for plagiarism.

From the coverage by Richmond Times Dispatch :

Routman was nearing the end of the summer voyage when she was accused of plagiarism. Her class had been assigned to watch a movie and write a paper comparing it with personal experiences from the voyage.

She chose "Europa Europa," a film about the Holocaust, and related it to her experience growing up Jewish.

She said she watched the movie but looked up the synopsis on Wikipedia to make sure she used the right historical terminology.

The day before the papers were returned, she said, the professor told the class there were some suspected cases of plagiarism and asked students to come forward and make a "conscientious retraction."

"Had I had any idea I had done something wrong, I would have absolutely come forward," she said.

Several students did, however, and were not expelled, she said. But she and another student were ordered off the ship.

IPBiz notes that Ohio University was the site of the masters degree plagiarism mess in the engineering school.

Full post as published by IPBiz on August 08, 2008 (boomark / email).